More than 100 new businesses a day

Some 37 thousand new companies started business in the Netherlands in 2003; 73 percent of them were one-man businesses. This enterprise form has become more popular in the last three years: in 2000 two-thirds of new companies were one-man businesses.

New businesses by legal form

55 thousand new jobs

These 37 thousand new companies created 55 thousand new jobs in 2003. Three years previously new companies accounted for 65 thousand new jobs. This means that the number of workers per new company fell by 12 percent, from 1.7 in 2000 to 1.5 in 2003.

Number of new companies by sector, 2003

Just over 3 thousand of the more than 10 thousand new companies in the business services sector were management consultancies, and just over one thousand were advertising agencies. The construction sector is also a popular branch: a total 5,700 new companies went into business in this sector. These are mostly independent enterprises without employees.

Free professions

Many people in the so-called free professions also started out on their own: 1,600 hairdressers and beauticians, for example, started their own business in 2003. These are businesses in which one person worked for at least 15 hours a week. Another thousand people in this sector started their own business but worked for less than 15 hours of a week.

First quarter of 2004

In the first quarter of this year, 10,500 new companies went into businesses. This is 1,000 more than in the same period last year. These new companies provided jobs for 15,700 people. The number of workers per new company at the beginning of 2003 is therefore equal to the average in 2003, around one and a half employee per new company.

Rico Konen